Finders Keepers

by Melanie Mcfarlane

  Copyright © Melanie McFarlane 2021

  Published in Canada and the United States in 2021 by Orca Book Publishers. orcabook.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: Finders keepers / Melanie McFarlane.

  Names: McFarlane, Melanie, author.

  Series: Orca currents.

  Description: Series statement: Orca currents

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2020027046X | Canadiana (ebook) 20200270575 | ISBN 9781459827691 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459827707 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459827714 (EPUB)

  Classification: LCC PS8625.F375 F56 2021 | DDC jC813/.6—dc23

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020939208

  Summary: In this high-interest accessible novel for middle readers, Macy discovers a mermaid in the prairie lake near her home.

  Orca Book Publishers is committed to reducing the consumption of nonrenewable resources in the making of our books. We make every effort to use materials that support a sustainable future.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Design by Ella Collier

  Cover design by Ella Collier

  Cover artwork by Getty Images/Yuri_Arcurs

  Edited by Tanya Trafford

  Author photo by Michelle Heisler

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  24 23 22 21 • 1 2 3 4

  Orca Book Publishers is proud of the hard work our authors do and of the important stories they create. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it or did not check it out from a library provider, then the author has not received royalties for this book. The ebook you are reading is licensed for single use only and may not be copied, printed, resold or given away. If you are interested in using this book in a classroom setting, we have digital subscriptions with multi user, simultaneous access to our books, or classroom licenses available for purchase. For more information, please contact digital@orcabook.com.

  ivaluecanadianstories.ca

  For Emily, my adventurer, and all the readers in search of buried treasure.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  I dug deep into the muddy sand. I was looking for treasure at the bottom of the lake. But the more I dug, the darker the water got. Then something soft touched my foot. I froze. What was it? A weed? Or, worse, a hungry fish? I was a treasure hunter, not a diver. I needed to get out of here!

  As soon as my head popped out of the water, I gasped for air. I was at the very far end of the marked swimming area. I thought again about what could be moving around below me. Why had I swum out so far? I knew if Mom were here, she’d tell me to just take a breath, that my active imagination was always working overtime. But she was at work right now. She is a park ranger for Buffalo Pound Provincial Park. That’s why we live here.

  I love living at the lake. I can ride my bike anywhere I want to go. I have hills to explore. And my best friend, Sam, lives close by, so we can hang out most days. But the lake water hides a ton of scaly creatures that make me nervous. Have you ever seen a fish up close? Their big eyes, spiky fins and sharp teeth make them look like monsters.

  “Hurry up, Macy!” Sam called from the shore. He was standing next to my little brother. Real nice. They left me alone out here to be fish food.

  I looked around, trying to figure out the fastest way out of the lake. Old Lady Wilson’s dock was to the right. In front of me was the beach. To my left were tall reeds—they were a bit closer, but I hate the feel of moving through them.

  Something soft touched my foot again. The creature had found me! This time it grabbed on to my toes!

  “Ahh!” I screamed, kicking my feet furiously. It wasn’t letting go!

  I swam as fast as I could toward the beach. When I reached the shallow water, I tried to stand but slipped on the thing attached to my foot. I fell back into the water and grabbed at my toes. It was just a chunk of lake weed. I laughed, but then remembered that leeches and other creepy crawlers love to hide in lake weed.

  I stood up quickly. I looked down at my feet to make sure there was nothing near them. That’s when I spotted something sparkly under the water. I had to investigate. Finding things is kind of my thing. I started digging carefully like I’d learned from my handbook, Treasure Hunting 101. Rule number one: Always protect the scene.

  My fingers found something solid. It felt like a bottle. I pulled it out of the sand and held it over my head like a trophy. I had found the first treasure of the day!

  “Hey!” Sam called out. “What’s that?” He ran into the water and stood next to me.

  “Aw,” said my little brother, joining us. “It’s just a bottle.”

  “Hang on,” I said. Something clinked inside the bottle.

  I flipped the bottle over. With a THUNK, a blob of wet sand fell out. Stuck inside the bottle was a beautiful pink shell that glimmered. I tried to shake it out.

  “Whoa, that’s cool,” Sam said. “I’ve never seen a shell like that before.”

  “Maybe it’s from the ocean!” my brother said.

  “That’s impossible, Bug,” I said. My brother is eight years old. His real name is Ben. Mom thinks I call him Bug because he likes creepy crawlers. But really it’s because he’s so annoying, a real pain in my butt. I always have to babysit him.

  “Is not,” Bug said. He crossed his arms.

  I grunted. The closest ocean is more than a thousand miles away. But Bug had a point. This shell did not look like any of the brown clamshells I’d found at the bottom of the lake.

  I shrugged. “Lost treasure?”

  We made our way back to the beach. Sam and Bug followed me up to the rocky ledge where we’d left our bags and bikes. Close to Mrs. Wilson’s cabin, it was the perfect place to stash our stuff, away from the crowds of people on the beach.

  Bug pushed between us. “How did that big shell get in that tiny opening anyway?” he asked.

  “Beat it, Bug.” I peered into the bottle. I’d seen a ship in a bottle before, down at the Treasure Trove, the local general store. But someone had built that boat inside the bottle, piece by piece. Bug was right. How did a shell get inside this one?

  “But I want to see,” said Bug.

  He grabbed at the bottle. I lost my grip, and the bottle fell out of my hands. It smashed against the rocky shore. Glass shot everywhere, like sparks at a campfire. The shell slid between two rocks, just out of reach.

  “Bug!” I yelled. “Look what you did.”

  Bug stepped back, crossing his arms again and pinching his lips together. “I’m going to tell Mom you’re not being nice.”

  “I’ll tell her you smashed a bottle,” I said, trying to dig out the shell. “And here, of all places.”

  Right on cue, a screech came f
rom the front porch of the cabin. “What are you kids doing down there?” Old Lady Wilson stood there, shaking her cane at us.

  “Run!” I pulled the shell free, threw it in my bag and jumped on my bike.

  I didn’t wait for Bug or Sam. I kicked down the pedal and took off. I didn’t stop until I got to the top of Crow’s Hill. Soon Sam caught up to me, both of us huffing and puffing.

  We had escaped. We had the shell. Everything was perfect.

  “Wait,” I said. “Where’s Bug?”

  Chapter Two

  “I can’t see him,” I said, scanning Old Lady Wilson’s yard from the top of the hill.

  “You should be happy. Now we’re Bug-free,” Sam said. He had taken out his soccer ball and was bouncing it on his knees.

  Sam doesn’t have a little brother. All he babysits is his soccer ball. He carries it in his backpack all the time.

  “We have to go find him,” I said.

  We walked our bikes back down the hill and hid them in the ditch by Old Lady Wilson’s place. Then Sam and I crept up to the long line of bushes that separated the beach from her yard, making our way to the shore.

  We could see Old Lady Wilson on the other side of the bushes, poking around the rocks with a stick. Her back was to us, and her long silver braid peeked out under her hat. She was muttering to herself.

  “What’s she doing?” Sam whispered louder than he should have.

  I brought a finger to my lips. “Shh.”

  The old woman’s voice drifted between the leaves. “The beast,” she mumbled. “I can’t let the beast find it.”

  What was she looking for? I leaned forward to try to hear better, but something startled me in the bushes beside us. I froze. Was it the beast? The leaves stirred again, and then Bug stumbled out.

  “What were you doing in there?” I asked, relieved.

  Bug shrugged, pulling leaves from his hair. “You took off too fast, and I hid so the lady wouldn’t keep yelling at me.”

  “Sheesh, Bug.” I shook my head. “You need to stay close. Mom would have killed me if I’d lost you.” Bug just stared at me. “Go get your bike,” I said. “It’s time to go hunting.”

  We biked back to the picnic area. It’s a treasure hunter’s dream. My plan was to find a big treasure before Mom made us move to the city for work. A big treasure meant money, which might convince Mom to stay.

  “Look over there!” Bug said. Before I could see what he was talking about, he ran off toward the tall grass that separated the picnic area from the lake.

  “Should we follow him?” Sam asked.

  I shook my head. “If Bug is going to leave the hunt, then he gives up his share of the treasure.”

  I searched the picnic tables—on top and underneath—but they were empty. In fact, the last people who had eaten here were so clean they had even wiped down the tables before they left. Mom would be happy we were doing our part to keep the park clean.

  “Bummer,” Sam said, reaching for his soccer ball.

  “I better see where Bug went,” I said as I headed toward the tall grass.

  I pushed through the grass. It was so high it reached my chin, and it was full of cattails and weeds. The grass ended at a tiny hill that led down to the sandy beach. But this wasn’t a tourist-friendly beach. Rocks and broken clamshells were scattered everywhere. Hungry seagulls often stopped here for afternoon snacks.

  Bug was behind a log, peeking at something down the shore. Maybe he’d found a treasure.

  “What’s up, Bug?” I asked.

  “Shh,” he said, handing me the binoculars. “It’s a sora rail. It’s a waterbird. It’s shy. Don’t scare it away.”

  I knelt and looked through the binoculars. I could see a small bird with a yellow beak hopping along the beach. “Boring. Birds do nothing but eat, fly and poop.”

  If Sam was here, he would have giggled. I can always get him going with poop talk. Bug didn’t even crack a smile.

  “You don’t get it.” He tried to grab the binoculars back from me.

  Bug is right. I’m not obsessed with wildlife like he is. It is pretty cool how much he knows about the different kinds of animals around here. But I would never tell him that.

  Leaning back against the log, I used the binoculars to scan the beach for anything that looked promising. Parts of the hill had broken away. At its base were piles of dried-up lake weed. Something in one of the piles caught my eye. A wallet!

  “Treasure!” I jumped up and ran. I grabbed the wallet and waved it in the air. A shiny silver pen fell out and landed on my shoe.

  Sam leaped out of the grass above me. “Cool pen!” he said.

  I kicked it over to him. Treasure-hunting rule number two: Always share with your team.

  Bug joined us. He shot me one of his disapproving looks. “You can’t keep that!” he said.

  “Finders keepers,” I said, putting the wallet in my backpack. “It’s the law of the land.”

  “But it’s wrong,” Bug said.

  I rolled my eyes. Bug is four years younger than me. But he acts like he knows everything. “We’ll turn it in at the store like we always do,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Three

  The Treasure Trove is part ice-cream shop, part general store. Locals just called it the Trove. And it has the best lost-and-found rule! If lost items aren’t claimed in a week, the person who turned them in gets to keep them.

  Drake McDaniel was behind the front counter. His hair was a mess. He looked like he had just gotten out of bed. He thinks he is so great and always makes fun of us. He claims he is a master treasure hunter. But I’ve never seen him find a single thing.

  “Oh, look,” Drake said. “The famous hunters are here. What junk did you bring in this time?”

  “Is the Captain in?” I asked. The Captain is the owner and is the best part of visiting the store. He always has interesting stories to share about his days at sea.

  “Ahoy, mateys!” The Captain’s deep voice filled the room as he entered. “How goes the hunting?”

  The Captain’s broad shoulders and round belly shook as he laughed heartily. He always dresses the part, wearing a black-and-white captain’s hat with gold trim, his long white hair tied back. A scruffy white beard covers his chin.

  “We bring treasure,” I said, placing the wallet on the counter. Sam lay the silver pen down too.

  “Great work, mateys!” The Captain scooped up the wallet. “You’ll be pleased to know that the owner of this here wallet has already filed a Missing report. You did good, kids. Right honorable!”

  Well, I guess I would be happy if someone had found my wallet. Still, it was a bit disappointing to know I wasn’t any closer to my goal. But then I remembered I had found something else today. “Hey,” I asked, pointing to the bottle up on the shelf behind the counter. “How would someone get a shell inside a bottle?”

  “A shell?” The Captain scratched his head. “I guess it would depend on what kind of shell you’re talkin’ about.”

  “It doesn’t look like any shell we’ve ever seen,” Bug said. “It’s got pink and white stripes and is kind of sparkly. It looks like something that came from the ocean.”

  The Captain’s eyebrows shot up. “A shell from the ocean? Now that’s interesting. Show me.” He leaned against the counter. “I did sail the Pacific for thirty-odd years, as you know. I could tell ye for sure if it’s a saltwater shell or a freshwater one.”

  “Sure,” I said, frowning at Bug as I pulled my bag off my shoulder and searched through it. When I found the shell, both Drake and the Captain leaned far over the countertop to see.

  “Wow,” Drake said. His eyes grew wide as he reached for the shell. “That is very cool. Where did you find this again?”

  I yanked the shell out of Drake’s reach and passed it to the Captain. “I didn’t say,” I replied.

  The Captain whistled as he gently took the shell in his large, rough hands. “Well, I’ll be. That there’s a shell from the ocean,
indeed!”

  “Really?” I’d never seen the ocean, let alone held a shell from it. “How do you think it got into a bottle?”

  “I think,” the Captain said, turning the shell, over in his hands, “that someone must have wanted to protect it very much.”

  “Cool!” Sam said. “Is it worth anything?”

  Drake leaned in close to the shell. “Look, Captain,” he said. “It’s broken.” He seemed pleased.

  “Oh dear,” the Captain said, flipping the shell over. “You’re right. There’s a big piece missing. That will definitely affect its value.”

  “But that’s all we’ve got,” I said. “What if we found the other piece?”

  Drake snorted. “You’ll never find it.”

  “I don’t think a broken shell is worth much, even if you glue it back together,” the Captain said. “But you never know.”

  “I bet I can find it, Captain,” Drake said.

  The Captain just looked at him.

  “No,” I said. “We’ll find it.” There was no way I was letting Drake get his grubby hands on our treasure.

  “In the meantime, if it’s all right with you, I’ll put the shell back here in the lost-and-found bin.” The Captain leaned forward and winked. “Just in case its owner comes looking for it.”

  I looked at the shell. Even though it was broken and probably wasn’t worth much, for some reason it felt to me like my biggest find yet.

  “Okay,” I said. “But let me know if anyone asks about it.”

  “Will do, little lady. Drake, get these kids some ice cream to fuel their travels,” the Captain said.

  We left the store with our ice-cream cones. “Eat those somewhere else,” Drake had snapped. “I’m not cleaning up after you.” He is so nasty.

  The sun was directly above our heads. Mom would be expecting us for lunch soon. We walked with our bikes until we had finished our cones, then raced home.

  “We need to get back to Old Lady Wilson’s after lunch,” I said to Sam as we pulled up to my cabin.

  Sam stopped his bike and put his foot on the ground to balance. “Why?”